The special V&A map for LDF was hard to figure out, even to museum staffs, and it cost me a lot of effort to find an each work. There was no theme or direction for those displays, but what I liked the most was “Mimicry Chairs“, total of eleven installations using white transparent metal chairs, created by Japanese design firm “nendo“. The chairs were placed in the main entrance as well as ten other locations in the museum including galleries, staircases and corridors. Unfortunately, sitting on the chairs was not allowed, but those installations perfectly fit in an each space and created good harmony with surrounding artworks and objects.

メディアでも取り上げられたせいか、Yo! Homeのブース前はデモンストレーションを待つ人々の列 / There was a queue to get in the booth of Yo! Home to see a demonstration, because media wrote about it

ワンベッドルームアパートメントの平均サイズという、限られたスペースを活かす工夫が満載。寝室の床が天井に上がり、リビングルームになる / There was a full of idea to maximize the limited space of a typical one bed room apartment. Bedroom floor goes up and a living room appears.

壁に備え付けられた机は、来客用ベッドルームに早変わり / Work table attached to the wall turns to be a guest bunk bed

Some of V&A‘s London Design Festival 2011 displays & installations, other than “Timber Wave“. These works are located several different location in the vast museum, in between the permanent collections. It would be a good cultural hiking route, so be prepare with comfortable walking shoes!

It’s nothing to do with Design Festival, but I will take a break from blog for 2 weeks. See you in two weeks!

London Design Festival 2011 came back to the city – from September 17 to 25, you see a festval’s icon, red signboard in front of the participating organizations such as museums, design firms, shops, and galleries, all over London. Victoria & Albert Museum is also a part of the festival and visitors can enjoy commissioned installations and displays as well as special events, talks and workshops throughout the period (details are at V&A website).

A gigantic installation of ‘Timber Wave‘ by Amanda Levete Architects and Arup (September 17 – October 15) at the Cromwell Road entrance is one of the highlight at the V&A festival program. The three-dimensional latticework spiral is made of American red oak, using lamination techniques normally used in furniture making, and applied to create a piece 12m high. It has un-treelike flexibility and treelike vitality – spectacular.

This is another of Ben Eine‘s work, “ANTI ANTI ANTI” and “PRO PRO PRO”, created around the same time as “Change” in this autumn. Cheerful and colorful “PRO PRO PRO” was painted on a building of an advertising company “Mother“, on the opposite of “ANTI ANTI ANTI” in black, white and gray with a little bit of vivid red, on the Londonnewcastle project space. Ben Eine created “ANTI ANTI ANTI” for “Anti Design Festival,” held from 18 to 26 September around Shoreditch area as a part of London Design Festival. Antonym “PRO PRO PRO” came after, to make a contrast.

I’ve never heard of “Anti Design Festival,” but it was founded by a British typographer and graphic designer Neville Brody, to create an opportunity to showcase design with unrestricted creativity and inspiration, which have been replaced by money and commercialism in the last 25 years. I understand the concept of free-spirited design, but I was so annoyed by reading the words overlapped with each other on their website!!

There is a Mecca for Graffiti artists near our home, where several graffitis overpainted by the new one on the former Rentokil depot. Since I talked about David Choe‘s work last year (past entry), PURE EVIL’s MURDER MILE took over the space, and recently I photographed someone working on the new project. I thought it was just another graffiti, but since then there had been people coming in and out from this normally empty building, and we were expecting an opening of a new gallery or shop. Then on September 14, the mystery was solved, by Daily Candy’s daily newsletter.

As a part of the London Design Festival, “HEL YES!“, a temporary restaurant and exhibition showcasing the best Finnish food and design, opens just 14 days, Wednesday to Sunday from September 15 to October 3. The Finnish Institute and Antto Melasniemi who manages Helsinki’s popular restaurants “Ateljé Finne” and “Kuurna“, planned and created together with UK-based fashion illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi, an art director & concept designer Mia Wallenius and others. Iittala and Artek supplied exclusive customized furniture, lighting and tableware, and the lighting design, furniture and staff uniforms were designed exclusively for HEL YES! by leading Finnish contemporary designers.

We wanted to make a reservation since it is nearby, and it is a rare occasion to try Finnish food, but this temporary restaurant is fully booked during the period – so we just took some photos. But HEL YES! is open without booking for viewing, coffee and drinks. It is just few steps away from the Wenlock Arms I wrote yesterday, and the Victoria Miro Gallery is around the corner – why don’t you try these three as a set, if you are around during the event?

A seating area using textiles designed by Klaus Haapaniemi. The painting outside the building is his work as well – but maybe done by someone else as his hairstyle was different from Haapaniemi’s portrait photo?

We saw signboards of “London Design Festival” and “Icon Design Trail” in front of Wenlock Arms, the closest pub from us and we cannot go anywhere without going through in front of it. Established in 2003, the London Design Festival is one of the world’s most important annual design events. The nine-day Festival program is made up of over 200 events and exhibitions staged by around 160 partner organizations such as museums, design firms, shops, and galleries. As a part of it, a design firm Established & Sons, situated just across the street, decorated the Wenlock Arms with colorful and modern furniture and wall clocks, and transformed this historical but a bit shabby space into its design showroom (detail). The small pub was filled with mixed clienteles during this time, hard-core old regulars and a design crowd.

It’s been over 5 years since we moved in this current apartment, but we’ve never been to the Wenlock Arms just a stone’s throw, partly because I am not a big fan of British traditional Ale, but more than that, I thought the pub was exclusive to regulars (just my impression) and I would feel a fish out of water. But this event is a great opportunity for us to step into this well reputed pub, which was chosen as one of the London’s best real ale pubs by the Time Out magazine. I ordered a half-pint (285ml) of ale recommended by a bartender. The taste is a bit sour for me and not my cup of tea as other ales, but the price is only £1.50 – even cheaper than a cup of espresso at a fancy café!

The Wenlock Arms, first opened as a pub in 1836 and was reopened in 1994, however, is now under threat of demolition – not sure when, but probably October or November. There are some people and online community trying to save the pub, including londonist, but I am afraid if they can make it under a big wave of redevelopment sweeping the neighborhood. A dog, which I often see with his (or her?) owner at the pub when I walk by, will be sad if his beloved pub is gone (he is in the photo on the bottom of this blog)…

…By the way, it was only today that I learned that ‘pub’ came from ‘public house’!